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The cavern floor is littered with bullet-riddled goblin corpses, sticks of butter, and bowls of porridge. There are only two 9mm rounds left in my Ploika Compact, and I spent my last flame-enchanted 12g shells turning a fire wizard into a fired wizard. Before I push deeper into the goblins’ lair, I pick the butter off the floor and toss it in a nearby cauldron. It’s buttermilk pancake time. Early access extraction shooter Sulfur may not be tagged “cozy” on Steam, but it’s my favorite cozy game of 2024. Here’s how dev Perfect Random turned gravy, green tea, and goblin guts into such a satisfying dish.
Sulfur Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving
Ever since the holiday update, I’ve had two armored Santa suits and a shiny new Salamander pistol sitting in storage. When you die in Sulfur, you lose everything you’re carrying. You gamble your loadout with every run into the caves, sewers, and beyond. It’s a game that flourishes in the liminal space between Escape from Tarkov and Dark and Darker, challenging you to push your kill-a-thon just one more level. Use your katana to put ghosts back in their graves, then heal up with a gut-warming stew. Slap a new scope and silencer on that revolver you just looted, and hope you live long enough to get it enchanted.
Sulfur was pretty polished even before its recent performance update cut load times and cleared up sprites. That said, if it ran at 1 FPS like a Post-it Note flipbook, I’d probably still play. It’s as punishing as any extraction shooter, ripping away your loot-laden inventory and the guns you’ve worked so hard to mod, but it never gives me the same sour notes that Tarkov did. While the absence of PvP, spawn camping, and the like may irritate some players, to me it’s one of the game’s greatest strengths. I have no one to blame for my losses except myself (and the Black Guard rifleman gunning me down).
What to Fondue Next?
Then there’s the cooking. Oh, you found some weird mushrooms in a cave? Toss those Velvet Bells on a stick, and you’ve got a lifesaving mushroom skewer. Will the HP regen be enough to save you from the next skeleton attack? No telling! Best to hunker down beside the cauldron for a while, whipping up whatever culinary treats you can. You’re one part alchemist, one part chef, and one part crazed mercenary, bringing the wrath of your full-auto Corpsemaker down on a troop of goblin archers. Later there will be bullets and suffering, but for now, there’s fondue.
The instant transition from gory gunfight to grid-based cooking should make for gameplay whiplash. It doesn’t, at least for me. After my first few hours of falling into bottomless pits, getting swarmed by ankle-biting goblin infants, and losing my prized sniper rifle to Cousin, I found Sulfur‘s rhythm. I want more. Despite its early access status, this hidden gem delivered the coziest carnage of any game I played this year. With new biomes, weapons, and recipes on the roadmap, 2025’s looking like a banner year down in the goblin depths.
